No country in the Eastern civilization offers the students of folkloristics an excellent opportunity to trace the links of unity amidst clusterized diversity as does India. "Throughout the history of India", writes Munshi, "the process of integration comprises two simultaneous movements: one owes its origin to Aryan culture and operates by virtue of the momentum which the values of that culture possess; the other works itself upward from the way of life of the Early Dravidians and other non-Aryan cultures in the country into the framework of Aryan cultures, modifying its form and content, though not the fundamentals, weaving into a harmonious pattern continuously. The first movement provides vitality and synthesis, the second contributes vigour and variety. But it is the harmonious adjustment of both that gives to India, age after age, her strength, tenacity and sense of mission" (Munshi, 1954 : viii). Those scholars who ventured serious research on Indian culture in the beginning of the present century seem to have failed to capture this essence of harmonious pattern and therefore suffered from the lack of "general frame of understanding of the actual regularities in Indian civilization and society" (Mandelbaum, 1978 : 3). It is in the light of these and other deep rooted realities of Indian culture and civilization that the much discussed theories such as the "Great Tradition" and the "Little Tradition" need to be viewed; both for their successes and failure. Another problem of equal importance, which early ethnographers who worked in India seem to have ignored, is the relations which might link "microviews into a macroview of the prevailing and ongoing civilization"1. Had the research targets of such ethnographers been a little broad-based on deeper, these links would have become known and this in turn would have certainly cleared the conceptual undergrowth and provided and excellent opportunity to scholars to work out the relations which existed between the "scriptural theories"2 of Indian society and the actual systems which operate in Indian village life. Moreover, in the final analysis, it would have perhaps helped to construct an overall structure of though of Indian society and allowed scholars to depart from the "wilderness of old misconceptions"3.

Despite a continuous rich tradition of anthropological work on the Indian sub-continent, oral traditions, particularly the rich and fascinating folk narratives, unfortunately remained untouched: were not collected or subjected to the rigorous analytic tools anthropologists had developed over the years. While studies on Indian caste system, social structure, kinship, village organization, etc., received the attention of both Western and Indian scholars, resulting in the publication of valuable studies; oral traditions unfortunately did not provoke a similar response. Scholars generally seem to have failed to understand that a systematic study of oral traditions would contribute immensely to the understanding of the phenomena we all are seeking to comprehend. However, in the recent years, scholars have realized their past mistakes and the need to study oral traditions in order to understand the realities of Indian culture in a holistic manner are felt by both Western and Indian scholars and accordingly many new approaches have been adapted. For instance, until mid 50 s anthropologists cared very little for oral traditions. However, it was after mid 50 s when structuralism, primarily based on Lévi-Strauss' studies of primitive mythologies and oral traditions4, began to sweep anthropological studies, oral traditions began to attract the keen eye of every cultural anthropologist, so much so that interpreting cultural information now is considered incomplete without recourse to folklore.

India, as is well known, occupies a special place in the history of world folklore. The marvelous Indic tale has contributed in shaping the theoretical growth of folkloristics itself. For instance, Max Mu_ller's works on Indian myths and Theodore Benfey's translation of the famous Pan?catantra gave rise to the theory of Indian origin of the fairy tale. Whether these and similar theories were sustained later or not is not the issue here. The issue is that the richness and variety of Indian folktales has the potential of inspiring such theories. This also reminds us of the importance of oral traditions that still flourish on this sub-continent

India also has the unique fortune of possessing the oldest written oral traditions in the world. Besides the R?gveda, Ramayan?a and Mahabharata, the Puran?s and Upanis?ads rightly called as the "encyclopaedia of Indian religion and mythology", Narayan?a Pan?d?it's Hitopadesa, Gun?ad?hya's Br?hatkatha, Somadeva's Kathasaritsagara, Das 'Vetala Pan?cavimsatika and other works such as Sukasaptati" and Jataka, are the best examples5. These written traditions, by virtue of writing and strict regulations, have become frozen now and with them many folkloric genres too. Out of these frozen forms, in due course, rose both the sophisticated and the non-sophisticated (oral) varieties of literature. Thus, one finds, without surprise, a folktale or a song in any of India's many modern languages and its older "frozen" form in the Vedic scriptures or similar ancient literature. This dual tradition (sometimes erroneously thought as a synonym for "Great Tradition" and "Little Tradition") has not only continued, flourished and made its impact on the global folklore scholarship, but has also contributed to the theoretical and methodological issues concerning Indian folklore itself. For instance, Indian folklorists, unlike their Western counterparts while working on Indian materials having such dual traditions, face complex problems of genre, function and even structure.

Any serious student of Indian folklore cannot afford to ignore the chequered historical phenomenon of this sub-continent. India has assimilated into its systems diverse cultural currents, often coming through its deceptive frontiers, during the growth of her civilization. This is evidenced by the multiplicity of languages one notices in this country even at the present times. Languages belonging to four major language families of the world (Indo-European, Dravidian, Tibeto-Burman and Austro-Asiatic) are spoken on this sub-continent. That this linguistic diversity is reflected in cultural diversity of equal magnitude is a fact which hardly needs explanation. History tells us how and when these layers of cultural incrustations were formed. Alexander (326 B.C.) opened the gateway to Western influences. His invasion resulted in establishing the first Indian empire under great kings like Chandragupta Maurya and Ashoka. The latter gave impetus to Buddhist thought and India besides becoming a great power in the East, established itself as the fountain-head of one of world's greatest religions. After Scythians or Sakas emerged the great Guptas and their "Classical age of India". Then came the Hun?as, the Turks, Mughals, the Dutch, Portuguese, French and the British. Wars were fought, won and lost; empires established and destroyed and new cultural patterns woven into the existing systems during the chequered historical past of the north.

Conditions in the south, populated by the Dravidians-- the builders of the great Harappan Culture -- were not much different. History was not less chequered in any manner there than the north. The strong kingdoms such as Ras?t?rakut?as, Colas, Pan?d?yas, Ceras, Calukyas and Hoysal?as flourished there and developed historically significant contacts with the north. Such contacts can be reasonably dated to the Mauryan period. The Ca´gam literature, epitome of Dravidian classical age, is a storehouse of indigenous Dravidian cultural tradition and at the same time holds the elements which intruded into it from the northern Aryan tradition. This shows the close historical links between the north and the southern parts of India.

There is yet another dimension of Indian history which has not been explored. The tribal groups -- of Dravidian, Austro-Asiatic and majority of them of Tibeto-Burman origin -- driven into the dense tropical forests of the central and north-eastern India by historical compulsions, have not been the subject of written histories of india6. Most of these groups lack scripts for their languages and run their daily affairs by the oral word and action. They possess no written records and therefore do not, according to the popular traditions of history - writing in this country, qualify for inclusion in history as it is erroneously believed that they do not possess any "history". This attitude of the historian has continued for a long time and has, besides harming his own area of inquiry deprived the country of accurate and total account of history. It is only recently, much later after the country gained freedom, that reconstruction of the historical past of such peoples has become the concern of the academic intelligentsia including the historian. Such reconstructions are now being made possible with the help of oral traditions and the role of a folklorist, particularly a specialist in oral history, is becoming central in this endeavour.

Possessing such a complex historical past, it is not surprising to find its reflection in the present day India, its society and its complex forms of cultural diversities. This diversity is evident in the language, food, dress, oral traditions, literature and other aspects of Indian life. However, at the same time it needs to be remembered that this diversity has never hampered the cultural unity of the people of this land. This kind of cultural unity can be compared with a centre in a circle: the circle being represented by regional diversities. And it is from the circle that the centre derives all its strength. At first instance this argument might sound unconvincing when viewed from the concept of historical changes that have occurred in the West. But it is true and very much there; and can be felt in both dimensions -- diachronic and synchronic -- of Indian thought. Oral traditions evidence this fact. The strength of Indian culture cannot be measured accurately by a non-Indian standard, it certainly has to be judged by its own standards.

Folklore studies in modern India began with the coming of the British. All kinds of cultural studies including Sanskritic and ethnographic accounts formed then an important part of a discipline known as Indology. However, folklore, more especially the written materials, did form a part of these studies. Such being the affiliations, it is no wonder to find folklore materials treated in volumes which strictly speaking belonged to history or Sanskrit literature. Some scholars7 have made some modest attempts to trace the growth of folklore studies in India. However, all such basic studies, academically highly useful and informative, lack coherence and distort the very picture they claim to draw. Moreover, these studies, because of the vastness of the area they try to enquire into, and also because of the lack of a sound theoretical approach, seem to fail utterly in joining the missing links and establishing regularities. Inspired by these attempts I have tried to divide the entire period of growth and development of Indian folkloristics into three main eras: The Missionary Period, The Nationalistic Period and The Academic Period8. Avoiding the pitfalls of controversy over labeling such eras, and without going into every detail due to limitations of space, I shall confine myself here to major works of folkloristic importance that have contributed to the growth of folkloristic studies in the country. I must also confess that during the last two or three decades, hundreds of collections of folklore materials have appeared in major lesser known regional languages of India. I have attempted to list such contributions elsewhere9, as it is impossible to evaluate all such work in this brief introduction.TOP

THE MISSIONARY PERIOD
The Missionary Period of folklore activities in India can be traced back to the haydays of British Raj when the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal and the Indian Antiquary were founded in 1874 followed by the Journal of the Anthropological Society of Bombay in 1886. These and other Journals10, as is obvious form their names, catered to the needs of the Indological studies depending heavily on Sanskritic texts. However, brief articles on oral narratives and other genres of folklore did appear sometimes in these journals11. More than the journals, the bulk of folklore materials collected and studied in this period was the result of the tireless efforts of Christian missionaries and inquisitive British civil servants.

Christian missionaries, as is well known, landed in India with the single purpose of spreading the Christian faith among the caste-ridden, poor natives of India. This religious mission naturally carried these missionaries to the remote villages of the country giving them an excellent, but at times frustrating, opportunity of witnessing the rural Indian life in its actual cultural setting. These experiences of Indian rural life were new to these missionaries and sharing them naturally stimulated many good writings. These Anglo-Saxon fathers recorded all kinds of information - habits, manners, customs, oral traditions, ritual, etc. - about their subjects. They used some of this information in spreading the Christian faith and were successful in delivering their main message through the native symbol. Most of these writings were published and form now a part of the great treasures of folklore we possess about our own past. Looked from this viewpoint, these works of missionaries are of great historical value to a student of Indian folklore.

It would be wrong to claim that the data and the manner in which these are presented and studied in these missionary works maintain high academic standards. Missionary collections suffered from many weaknesses and limitations. But many good aspects of these collections such as attention to detail and accuracy of description, besides flawless printing despite the limitations of printing facilities can, and are, still, guiding the serious folklorist in this country. Mary Frere's Old Deccan Days or Hindoo Fairy Legends Current in Southern India Collected from Oral Tradition (1868) 12; A.J. Dubois' Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies (1897) 13; J. Hinton Knowles' Dictionary of Kashmiri Proverbs and Sayings Explained and Illustrated from the Rich and Interesting Folk-Lore of the Valley (1885) and Folk-Tales of Kashmir (1893); Aurel Steins Hatim's Tales (1871); Charles E. Grover's The Folk Songs of Southern India (1871); and John Lazarus' A Dictionary of Tamil Proverbs (1894) are some of the best examples of the early folklore studies of the Missionary Period.

Of equal importance are the contributions of British civil servants of the same period in the collection and study of Indian folklore materials meant "primarily to aid in the colonial administration"14. Whatever the motivation, just like the missionaries, the civil servants too collected and studied folklore materials from all parts of the country, even those untouched by missionaries. They also excelled in improving the quality of these studies by involving native scholars in this task. It was with the work of these bureaucrat-scholars that the need to collect and study the folklore of their own country was felt for the first time by Indian scholars. A large body of data was collected in this later period which is still guiding the scholar and the teacher of folklore. Some of the major works which came out as a result of this big academic thrust by the British civil servant (or his wife) have shaped the destiny of folklore and even anthropological studies in India. Besides others, the following major works deserve mention: Flora Annie Steel's Wide-Awake Stories (Tales of the Punjab Told by the People) (1894); William C. Crooke's Introduction to the Popular Religion and Folklore of Northern India (1894); and Natives of Northern India (1884) and Indian Folk-tales (1900); R.C. Temple's The Legends of the Panjab (1884-1900); Robinson Edward Jewitt's Tales and Poems of South India (1885); George A. Grierson's voluminous work The Linguistic Survey of India (1903-1907) carried a variety of oral narratives besides the data on languages: John F.A. McNair and Thomas Lambert Barlow jointly produced Oral Traditions from Indus: Comprised inTales to Which are Added Explanatory Notes (1908). In the same year was published E.M. Gordon's collection Indian Folk-Tales Being Side-light on the Village Life in Bilaspur, Central Provinces (1908), followed by Cecil Henry Bompas' Folklore of the Santhal Parganas (1909); and James Tod's Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan (1920). The works of Verrier Elwin deserve a special word here. Despite the fact that a good number of British civil servants had been actively collecting the folk materials, very few had ventured into the uncomfortable and often hostile tribal areas, particularly in the north-east and central provinces. Verrier Elwin's works on the tribals of North-East Frontier Agency (now consisting of the State of Arunachal Pradesh, etc.) did not only bring into light the hitherto undiscovered treasures of tribal folklore, but also attracted the attention of British Policy makers towards the welfare of these neglected people. Elwin published a good number of books15 on the tribal people of India. His personal contacts and travels among the tribals made him a very popular field worker and the bitterness of his civil service affiliations never surfaced and never hampered his work. He is remembered as the tireless ethnographer and folklorist even to this day, more dearly by those whom he studied and worked with.TOP

THE NATIONALISTIC PERIOD
The works of the missionaries and the civil servants, besides the primary purposes for which these were intended had a very strong side effect: these made Indian intellectuals aware of their own cultural heritage and fanned the decades old spark of freedom among them. Struggle to achieve freedom from the British had begun in 1857, but until the first decade of the present century it had not taken the form of a mass movement. Therefore, the more Indian scholars became aware of their cultural roots (be it through the writings of the very people whom they wanted to seek freedom from), the more they became impatient to be free both politically and culturally. India was suddenly awaking from centuries of slumber. She had to sweep away the incrustations of English culture to find her own roots and identity and folklore was to a great extent instrumental in stimulating the spirit of nationalism, both before and after the Independence was achieved16. There is however a word of caution here. By naming this period Nationalistic period, it does not mean that folklore works which represented this period carried or studied folklore materials of nationalistic fervour or pleaded only for the collection and study of such materials. Some examples which represent such feelings are there; but that is not enough to justify this name. Folklore works of this period, on the contrary, are in no manner entirely different from the ones out of which this period was born. But, then, many crucial differences are discernible. In the first place, native scholars, inspired by the nationalistic movement, for the first time valued their oral traditions and began collecting and studying them. Folklore no longer remained the exclusive domain of the long robed Christian missionary or the white collared foreign bureaucrat. Indian scholars felt that nationalism in India could not be made recognizable only by the deep collective emotions hidden in the hearts of deprived masses; on the other hand it had to be made manifest in the national languages, national epics, food, dress, ancient thought and wisdom, value system, folklore and literature. Folklore was pregnant with such emotion and was watching for an opportunity17.

Another important difference, that keeps these two periods apart, lies in the treatment given to the collected materials of this period. Folklore began to be studied from the Indian point of view. Collectors and analysts began identifying themselves with the native lore and the cultural context it very accurately represented. This identification -- a departure from the Sanskritic text-orientedness of Indian scholarship -- was hastened by the timely realization, by national leaders including Mahatma Gandhi, of this important fact that nationalist movement cannot succeed unless its primarily middle class character was changed to that of a mass nature18. This shift in politics was more profitably realized in the literature on oral traditions. Moreover, it also helped in making it very clear to the mixed middle class intelligentsia of the cities, hitherto the main crusader of nationalist movement, that in a predominantly rural-based country like India, "folklore served as a vehicle for the transmission of ideas and news"19, and was in fact the only powerful media of the masses. That nationalist movement helped folklore studies grow and in return it revitalized the movement by bringing it closer to the rural masses are facts which no serious historian -- of India and her oral traditions -- can afford to ignore. Among others, the major works on folklore which resulted in response to such feeling of this period are: Dinesh Chandra Sen's Sati (1917) and The Folk Literature of Bengal (1920); Zeverchand Meghani's Halardan (1928); Dadaji"ni Vato (1933), Lok Sahitya and Kankavati" (1947); Suryakaran Parikh and Narottam Swamy's D?hola Maru ra Duha (1940); Ramnaresh Tripathi's Hamara Gram Sahitya (1940) and Devendra Satyarthi's Bela Phule Adhi" Rat (1948), Dharti" Gati" Hai (1948), Dhi"re Baho Ganga (1948) and dozens of similar works. TOP

THE ACADEMIC PERIOD
The Academic Period of Indian folklore studies began soon after the country gained independence. However, the germs of those academic aspirations of scientific investigation, of analytic approach, which became dominant and earned the name for this period, can be seen scattered in the Nationalistic Period itself. The strong urge of academics, of scientificness, and of accuracy and authenticity seems to guide the folklore collector and the researcher alike in this period. One does not find the missionary - bureaucratic sprit or the strong nationalistic feelings as dominant motivating forces behind the folkloristic work of this period. On the other hand this period is rather more analytical and truth finding in nature. Unlike the past two phases, this phase has the support of the academic intelligentsia of the universities for scholarly persuits. It is in this era of development that folklore gained respectability as an academic discipline both in the outside the university campus. The protest and struggle against foreign rule and the crisis of identification seem to have been replaced not by the inner struggles of a new nation, and its search for truth and reality.

One of the major achievements of free India has been to preserve the cultural diversity of the sub-continent. This has enhanced the prestige of folklore in the country and naturally collection and study of such folklore has gained tremendous momentum. This is rather a new trend and has helped the growth of folklore studies in various regions20. Another important development in folklore studies of the current period has been that its central position in the cultural milieu of the country has been recognized by other equally important disciplines. This has underlined the importance of interdisciplinary research in folkloristics and related areas with the result that many universities besides teaching regional folklore as a subject in their regional literature departments, have now independent programmes in folklore leading to M.A. and Ph.D. degrees.

Many regional bodies, either established by the government or voluntary in nature, have also helped collection and analytical work on regional folklore. The amount of this kind of work has multiplied greatly during the past decade and it is hard to list all such works here.

Despite the fact that the Academic Period of folklore studies has so far been very productive, folkloristics in India, on comparison with any developed country in the West, seems far behind both in scientific collection and analysis. The scientific approach to oral traditions, which this period apparently is committed to, has not made its full impact yet on the general academics folklore scholars are pursuing. Indian folklore due to reasons of its ancient past, diversity, structural complexity and functional importance, seems to possess great potential both for a fuller understanding of Indian culture and civilization, and for theoretical and methodological reform in folkloristics proper. This potential remains to be exploited. However, the manner in which the folklore studies has caught up during the past few years indicates to its bright future. TOP